French palace intrigue: Ex-Macron security aide on trial

A former security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron who triggered a political crisis when he was identified as having beaten up a protester during a 2018 May Day demonstration goes on trial Monday on a dozen charges, including voluntary violence

France Macron's Aide (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

A former security aide to President Emmanuel Macron who triggered a political crisis when he was identified as having beaten up a protester during a 2018 May Day demonstration goes on trial Monday on a dozen charges, including voluntary violence, illegally wearing a police badge and carrying a weapon.

Alexandre Benalla 30, risks up to seven years in prison and 100,000 euros in fines if found guilty.

Benalla’s actions, and the way Macron’s office clumsily handled them, caused the French leader’s first major presidential crisis and discredited his efforts to clean up politics.

At the heart of the controversy was Benalla’s murky role at the presidential Elysee Palace — where a police security contingent is charged with protecting the president — and whether Macron’s presidency had a hidden side with Benalla, a critical player. Intense media coverage and a televised parliamentary inquiry that put top Elysee officials, normally invisible to the public, at center stage turned the Benalla affair into political soap opera peppered with intrigue.

A bevy of questions included why the aide stepped into the role of a police officer in the May Day confrontation as real officers stood by watching. Benalla was at the demonstration as an observer. Among other mysteries that emerged was why Benalla held two diplomatic passports, used for travel to African countries, after being dismissed from his ill-defined job at the presidential palace.

A further investigation was opened when a photo showed Benalla with a gun at his hip while serving as a security aide for Macron during his presidential campaign in 2017. It is for the illegal carrying of a firearm that Benalla risks seven years in prison if found guilty.

Taking the stand, Benalla spoke of being “surprised” by his arrest, because “I felt like I had done something positive for society (that day) by arresting delinquents. And I was taken into police custody.”

Benalla is being tried with three other people, two of them police officers who shared with him video-surveillance images showing him dealing blows to a demonstrator. The tip-off is a violation of professional secrets.

Hundreds of violent demonstrators had invaded the traditional May 1 march by unions when Benalla moved into action in a small Left Bank square. ‘’It was war,’’ Benalla told investigators, insisting that as an observer he had no intention of acting violently but intervened because it was his duty as a citizen.

Benalla was initially given a 15-day suspension from his job before returning and heading security for the France team’s victory parade down the Champs-Elysees Avenue on Bastille Day after winning the world championship. He was placed under investigation later in July and, amid public outcry, fired from his job at the presidential palace.